Panic Room

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

There is something horribly apt in the way Fincher closes the drama in joyless exhaustion, leaving you certain that there will be a sequel to these events, not onscreen but in someone's home, tonight. [8 April 2002, p. 95]

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Ingeniously scary.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

An old-house thriller retrofitted for the 21st century without any touch of unneeded flash, Panic Room is scary enough to do for downtown living what Jaws did for beaches.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Fincher eschews quick cuts in favor of long, leisurely ones. He knows what he's doing, and the proof is in the result. The suspense in Panic Room never ebbs, and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining -- if somewhat exhausting -- 108 minutes.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Richly frightening film.

Film Threat David Grove

A very scary film, well made and lovingly dark, and it illustrates how terrified we are of becoming the victims we see on TV.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Smartly plotted, convincingly acted and brilliantly executed technically, this engrossing thriller adds some clever modern wrinkles to the time-tested formula of sinister intruders threatening innocents in their home.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Always adept at hitting emotional cues cleanly, Foster in this role also lets herself get lost in the moment, which is something she hasn't often allowed herself to do since "The Silence of the Lambs."

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie, which suggests a combination of "Wait Until Dark" and "Rear Window," not only takes your breath away on an aesthetic level, it eloquently evokes the mother's and daughter's vulnerability.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Panic Room is Fincher's high-style testament to the cool things movies can do to make us jump out of our seats in the dark.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Works the basics with style and intelligence.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Jodie Foster stars, and it's a pleasure, for once, to see her in something entertaining and mindless.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Fincher has a dazzling command of visual storytelling.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

May actually appeal more to women than men because of the steely heroine, the pitting of love of family against love of filthy lucre -- and the mom-fights-back plot.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Generally makes good on its promise. There are shivers to be felt, especially in the early stages, and there's fun to be had, including the post-movie pleasure of detecting the soft spots in the plot. The result is an always-watchable picture from a director capable of more.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's pure popcorn entertainment, and it's pure formula, too: It's already been described, somewhat derisively, as Home Alone for grown-ups, which is not entirely off the mark.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie resembles a chess game; the board and all of the pieces are in full view, both sides know the rules, and the winner will simply be the better strategist.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Defies logic, the laws of physics and almost anyone's willingness to believe in it. But darned if it doesn't also keep us riveted to our seats.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Well-paced, well-structured nail-biter with precious little of the usual Hollywood nonsense, several virtuoso sequences, and a camera flourish that only occasionally gets silly.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Acceptably diverting Saturday night at the movies, especially if you're willing to check your brains at the popcorn stand.

Time Richard Schickel

A fairly standard exercise in claustrophobic menace. It is also an exercise in style.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

An above-average thriller.

USA Today Mike Clark

Things move fast enough to make it a movie to enjoy and then forget.

Slate David Edelstein

Panic Room is fluidly made, and it keeps the audience quiet and unpleasantly gripped. But the only surprise is the absence of surprise; that trap is in too-plain view.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What's surprising about this traditional thriller, moderately successful but not completely satisfying, is exactly how genteel and unsurprising the execution turns out to be.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A well-crafted exercise in urban paranoia that's so controlled it never achieves the reckless, visceral immediacy its subject matter demands.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Soon enough a pointed ode to New York City nerve-rack and survival skills dissolves into a far more average, less compelling, and sometimes just slapdash-vicious cat-and-mouse game.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Might give you a few decorating ideas if you happen to have been wondering about a home bomb shelter, but it's a thriller that doesn't thrill.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Feels like a Fincher film: It possesses the same smarts, the same visual panache, the same violence. But not the same heart.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

I was never bored but only occasionally interested.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The kind of joyless, over-calculated hit that may leave viewers feeling not haunted but headachy.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Foster is fine, but the story's outcome would seem a tad more uncertain if another actress had the part. How scary are three New York tough guys when you've handled Hannibal Lecter in your time?

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

The cumulative effect is less thrilling than it is merely amusing.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

It's difficult to work up a strong case of the heebie-jeebies when you keep getting thrown out of the movie by all the atrocious acting.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Might be entertaining for those who like seeing a terrified teenage girl watch a loved one get beaten to a pulp while she slides into a diabetic coma. For the rest of us it's both stagnant and vaguely unpleasant.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Like the shelter for which it is named, Panic Room is an efficiently tooled construction (albeit one whose success is overly predicated on its villains' single-minded idiocy). But unlike the eponymous treasure trove, there's nothing inside.